Page 101 - Life of Gertrude Bell

DURBAR 87

There were countless parties, lunches, dinners and meetings
with royalty and politicians, at which Gertrude was usually
accompanied by Domnul and the Russclls. She was introduced
to the Aga Khan by Lord Carlisle. There was talk of the insoluble
problems of India, of its outrageous wealth and poverty; and
continuing theological dispute with Hugo. As they journeyed
across country to Udaipur and Jaipur, Chitor and Alwar, and
back to Delhi, Gertrude demanded of her pacific young brother
an explanation of the mystical. ‘Gertrude could not see why one
revelation should be more valid than another, since both were
supposed to come from God,’ wrote Hugo as Gertrude harped
back to an earlier debate. ‘Then she interrogated me about the
Old Testament.’
‘How about Hezekiah and Moses?’ I couldn’t say that the
shadow went backwards ... ‘Then how about the burning
bush?’ This I couldn’t explain ... Then to New Testament
miracles. ‘Do the orthodox (by which she meant me!) accept
them? or are they not thought necessary to the Christian
faith?’ I said they are not necessary, except the Resurrection,
which is absolutely...
Before dinner one evening they were visited by an Indian hospital
assistant of some education who overheard them in discussion
and sought to join in. He was brought up to worship Rana and
Krishna, but as a student had adopted the faith of Arya Samaj,
with its belief in one indivisible God. Hugo asked him politely
if tills sect, rebelling against the orthodoxy of popular Hinduism,
was likely to spread, and if so whether it would touch the lower
classes. The visitor said that it was spreading among educated
men, but that the lower classes were never likely to adopt it,
adding as an afterthought that if they did the educated men would
be unable to find servants. Gertrude took no part in the conversa­
tion. When the Indian had departed she said to Hugo, ‘None of
your blasted equality for him.’
From Alwar to Lahore... ‘We left a Hindu city to find a
Muhammadan; we left marble temples, and find tiled mosques;
and we have exchanged a slender and naked Hindu population
for the stalwart men of the north, Sikhs and Pathans, long-coated,
with beards dyed with henna ... speaking a tongue bristling with
Persian words.’ They found Willie Peel and Lord Killanin on the
way, and went on to the North-West Frontier with the Russells.